


two can keep a secret

by outruntheavalanche



Category: Room For Rent (2019)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Gen, Implied Child Murder, Not Beta Read, Post-Canon, References To Past Murders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-05-15 23:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19305868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outruntheavalanche/pseuds/outruntheavalanche
Summary: ... if one of them is dead. Post-movie. Sarah digs up more than dirt in Joyce's backyard.





	two can keep a secret

**Author's Note:**

> Here's a random thing I threw together for a non-existent fandom after watching the movie [Room For Rent](http://nullferer.com/?https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6747818/).

One day, a week before Joyce’s planned return from abroad, Sarah makes the mistake of digging a hole in the earth by the apple tree. Having gotten the idea from one of the mommy bloggers she follows on Youtube, Sarah decided to make a time capsule out of a shoebox. She’s filled it with mementos, mostly revolving around Sammy: an index card with his footprints in black ink, a lock of jet-black hair from his first haircut, some clippings from his first fingernail cutting, copies of her first sonogram and ultrasound.

All the kind of things she would have liked to have shared with Bob. Had he not up and vanished.

Sarah digs at the earth with a spade, pausing every now and then to wipe sweat away with the back of her gloved hand.

She and Joyce hadn’t signed any agreements about what Sarah was and was not allowed to do to the house and property; she hopes Joyce won’t mind the spontaneous bit of yardwork she’s indulging in.

Sarah picks the spade back up and plunges it into the spongy earth—when it collides with something hard. Frowning, Sarah digs into the earth again in a different spot, once again hitting something big and solid. 

Sarah shoves her hands into the moist earth, digging frantically. She thinks about Sammy asleep in his nursery, and a pang of guilt twists in her gut at leaving him alone for even a moment. She’s only been gone for a few minutes and she has the baby monitor set up on the picnic table by the sliding glass door, but she still feels guilty at having left him alone.

She stops digging when her nails scrape against wood and metal. Sarah’s frown deepens as she prods at the object, before she realizes it’s a wooden steamer trunk.

She wonders if Joyce had buried her own time capsule out in the yard before she left all those months ago.

Sarah frees the trunk from the dirt and lugs it out, huffing in surprise at how unexpectedly heavy it is. When she dumps the trunk on the soft, damp grass beside her, something rattles around inside. Sticks, perhaps. Or maybe wooden toys, a child’s toys. 

Sarah remembers the story Joyce’s neighbor—poor, dear Gladys—had told her about the baby, and Joyce’s straying husband.

Some strange, cool feeling washes over Sarah then. A new sort of instinct she hadn’t had before she became a mother. With trembling hands, Sarah fiddles with the latch on the trunk and pops the clasp.

The contents of the wooden box are wrapped up in a faded pink blanket edged in tattered, yellowed lace. Sarah sucks in a breath, reaches out, and peels back a corner of the blanket.

Sarah screams so loudly, the birds scatter from the trees.

***

Sarah stands by the kitchen window, sipping whiskey out of a coffee mug. She’s still nursing and really shouldn’t be drinking alcohol, but she needs something to take the edge off. And Sammy can live with being bottle-fed for the time being.

She watches the workers from the window, dressed in their protective suits and gear like beekeepers, gloved hands reaching into the box—coffin—and extracting fragments of bone. One of the workers reaches in and lifts out a tiny, shattered skull, laying it out on the blanket by the pieces of bone.

Sarah chokes back a cry threatening to force its way out of her throat and downs the rest of her whiskey.

Sarah can’t stop thinking about what Gladys told her about Joyce and her husband. Their dead baby. She’d assumed it was a miscarriage, the way Gladys had framed it.

She glances back out the window and watches, her stomach twisting violently, as the crime scene workers zip the broken skeleton into a black bag. Like luggage. Like the luggage Joyce had taken with her on her trip.

God, she wishes Bob were here to fold her into his arms, press kisses all over her face—and other places—and tell her it’d all be okay. Where has he gone? Did he find out about Joyce and the baby—no, Sarah can’t go there. For all she knows, Joyce was a victim too.

Sarah puts her empty mug on the counter and tugs her cardigan tightly around her against a sudden chill in the air.

The CSIs finish excavating the body and leave for the coroner’s office. A police officer approaches Sarah, his hand extended, a pristine white business card stuck between his index and middle fingers.

“I’d advise you to stay away from the backyard for the time being,” the officer says, gruffly. “And call me if you think of anything. Day or night.”

Sarah takes the card with a lightly trembling hand. She still has dirt caked underneath her nails.

“Wh—what about Joyce? What should I tell her?” Sarah asks, tucking the card in her pocket.

“We’ll be in contact,” he says. “We’ve already reached out to her. She’s heading straight to the station when she gets in.” 

Sarah nods stiffly. “All right, officer. Thanks.”

“You take care, ma’am.” 

Sarah sees him out, then locks the door shut behind her.

***

Sarah’s eyes snap open and she’s in the basement and she knows it’s a dream. Joyce’s house doesn’t even have a basement, not many of them in Phoenix do.

She’s tied down to a chair, rope binding her wrists and ankles. She can hear Sammy’s faint cries and she struggles to get out of the chair. His cries become louder, more urgent, and Sarah feels wetness on her cheeks.

She feels something brush, feather-light, across her shins and when she looks down she realizes it’s the cat weaving between her ankles.

“Did you miss me?”

Sarah snaps to attention. Joyce is standing in the doorway at the top of the stairs, a dark silhouette blotting out almost all the light. When Joyce lifts her hand, something winks and flickers under the pale, murky lights.

A knife, Sarah realizes.

“Joyce, no,” Sarah gasps. 

Joyce descends the stairs, as if floating like a vampire, the blade gleaming and glinting in her raised right hand. 

“Wake up,” Sarah hisses, closing her eyes and pinching the inside of her bound wrist. “Wake up!”

Sarah opens her eyes to find herself staring at the ceiling of the guest room, her room, Sammy’s hungry cries crackling over the baby monitor.

Heaving a tired sigh, Sarah rolls out of bed and goes to get a bottle out of the fridge. After she warms the milk up in the microwave, Sarah goes to feed Sammy.

The unsettling dream, though it still lingers on her brain like cobwebs, begins to fade away the moment Sammy latches on and starts suckling.

Sarah doesn’t feel so scared and alone with Sammy resting heavily on her chest.

***

Sarah is half-dozing on the couch in front of the TV, Sammy napping on her chest, when she’s startled awake by the front door swinging open and banging into the wall.

Sarah jolts up, cradling Sammy against her chest. The cat leaps off the couch and skitters away, as if he can tell just from a disturbance in the air that trouble is coming.

Hefting Sammy in her arms, Sarah gets to her feet and goes to the top of the stairs. The door is wide open, but no one’s there.

“Odd,” Sarah murmurs.

After laying Sammy back in his crib, Sarah goes to investigate.

There’s a small white envelope sitting on the welcome mat outside the front door, her name slashed on it in jagged red ink.

Sarah bends down and carefully plucks it up between her thumb and forefinger.

The handwriting is unfamiliar.

Sarah shut the door behind her and goes to the kitchen to find a letter opener, but there aren’t any.

Grabbing a knife from the knife drawer, Sarah slashes open the envelope and shakes out a folded scrap of lined notebook paper. Sarah peels it open, slowly.

It’s a note, written in the jagged, careless hand of a teenager.

_U should watch urself, Joyce is a crazy bitch. Something happened to that guy. I saw her dragging a suitcase out to the dumpster one night. Then he didn’t come back. She sold his motorcycle._

_Wayne_

Sarah lets the note flutter out of her hand.

She can’t believe it. She _won’t_.

The front door swings open again, blown by the wind, and crashes against the wall. Sarah lifts her head, her hand tightening around the knife.

“Hell- _ooo_ ,” calls out Joyce’s sunny voice. “Did you miss me?”

She stands in the doorway and lifts her oversized sunglasses off her face. Joyce’s eyes fall on the knife in Sarah’s hand and she puts her hands on her hips.

Sarah’s mouth drops open but she can’t make the words come out. She finally manages to choke out a strangled, “Joyce.”

Joyce clucks her tongue at Sarah like a scolding mother hen. Joyce takes one step closer, then another, the soles of her shoes clicking on the tiles. Sarah backs away from the counter, knife still in hand, her mind flashing to Sammy sleeping in his crib.

Joyce’s thin lips twist into a facsimile of a smile. “Now, now, that’s no way to greet a friend, Sarah.”


End file.
